What's up, guys? This is Chris Majestic here of Majestechs.
Every time I have people over my house, and they come down my basement, I get a bunch
of questions about my projection set up for my home theater.
Today, I want to talk about projectors and why you might want to consider one over a TV.
So stay tuned.
Now, a funny story.
Actually, about two years ago, I posted a video comparing two short throw projectors,
and that video actually got enough views to inspire me to start this YouTube channel a
year later.
Now, I've helped enough people set up projects in their house that I figured it might be
helpful to make a video about it.
Now, it is important to consider that projectors and TVs serve two different purposes, and there
are pros and cons to both.
Now, for some reason, people tend to think that projectors are really expensive, but in
most cases, a good budget projector is actually going to cost you less than a large TV.
Right now, the projector that I use in my basement cost me just under 900 bucks when
I bought it two years ago.
Now, as you know, a projector is going to require you to have some type of a screen or a surface
for you to display an image.
Now, there's a bunch of different ways that you can go about doing this, but what I ended
up doing was building my own screen.
I just took a bunch of wood, made a frame out of it.
I bought some Carl's FlexiWhite Screen Material.
I stretched it over the frame and stapled it, and then I put felt tape around it.
It was really simple to do.
I'll actually link some of those materials that I bought in the description of this video
so you can check them out if you're interested.
I've got a 140" 16 x 9 screen that cost me just over a hundred bucks to build.
Now, there are a few different screen types.
If you're not handy, you can actually buy a fixed frame screen if you want to.
You've got pull-down screens, and then you can actually just paint the wall.
If you've got a blank wall in our basement, drywall, you can paint that with some good
paint, and you'll be just fine with that as well.
Now, of those options, a fixed frame is pretty much going to give you the best picture quality
for the most part, but if you don't have the money, painting a wall does work really well.
Now, considering that a projector is using light from a bulb, it's not going to be as
bright as a TV, so they typically work better in a basement or a dedicated theater room,
somewhere where you can easily control the light.
Now, if you really do want to put it into a bright room, there are ways that you can
combat that.
You can make the screen a little bit smaller just because the bigger the screen is, the
darker the picture's going to be, so that's going to help you fight light when you make
the picture a little smaller.
You can also get different types of screen material that'll actually reject the light,
or you can get different types of paints if you're putting it on a wall that'll help it
with that as well.
Now, another thing that you need to consider is throw distance, and throw is basically
how far the projector is from the wall or from the screen.
The average projector needs to be several feet away from your screen in order to project
a large image.
Let's say, for instance, you want to do an 120" screen.
Most projectors are probably going to need to be about 13 or 14 feet away in order to
get that size picture.
That is something you may want to consider if you're thinking about putting a projector
in a small space.
You definitely want to consider throw.
Now, if you really don't have the space, you can buy what's called the short throw projector,
which is what I actually bought, and that allows you to put the projector way closer
to the screen.
Some of them actually can be sit right in front of the screen.
Some of them you can sit a few feet away.
In my case, I have 140" screen, and it's sitting about 9.5 feet away.
A short throw projector is going to allow you to project a really large image from a
shorter distance.
Now, short throw projectors do cost a little bit more, and the image quality does suffer
a little bit comparing it to a non-short throw projector, but it's not really enough for
most people to notice.
Another thing I want to mention about projectors is lamp or bulb life.
I've always heard that the lamps burn out and they're really expensive to replace, which
means it's not worth getting a projector.
That's not really true anymore in the case of budget projectors.
First, we need to consider that you're going to get an average of about 4,000 hours out
of the lamp, which is a considerable amount of time for the projector to be on.
Now, if you do go beyond that, and the lamp does burn out, it's only going to cost you
around a hundred dollars to replace the bulb on a budget projector.
That's not really bad at all.
Now, TVs are great for just about any space, but when you want something really large and
you're comparing them to a projector, it can get really, really expensive.
A really cheap 70" TV is going to cost you maybe around a thousand bucks.
A good 70" TV is going to cost you 1,800.
Once you start to get into 80 or 85" TVs, you're well on to four or five, $6,000 or
more.
Now, to be fair, TVs do have a lot of benefits over projectors.
The first thing is that they're really, really bright, so you really don't have to worry
about putting it in a bright room because it's bright enough that it's going to overpower
whatever light you have in the room.
Another thing about TVs is that most of them are smart now.
They have smart features built in to them.
That's not something you're normally going to find in a projector.
In order to get smart features on a projector, you'd have to hook up something like a Roku,
Chromecast, or a Fire TV or something like that.
Another thing to consider is 4K and HDR.
Now, there are 4K HDR projectors out there, but if you're the average person and you're
really, really interested in 4K HDR, you might want to consider a TV over a projector, unless
you're willing to pay at least $10,000.
Now, after hearing that, I'm sure you're probably thinking, "Why would anybody buy a projector
over a TV after hearing all the benefits of a TV?"
Well, there are two reasons you might want to consider a projector.
Reason number one is "wow" factor.
There's nothing like walking into a room and seeing a huge screen with a nice picture on
it.
Now, let's consider that the average movie theater is going to use a 2K projector, which
is very close to just a 1080p projector.
Now, depending on where you're sitting in that movie theater, you could actually have
a better experience at home sitting in front of a 120" screen 10 feet away.
If you're sitting way back in a movie theater, then yes, that's going to be a really sharp
picture to you because you're not right up, and you can't really see the pixels, but if
you're sitting on the first few rows, you're definitely going to notice a drastic difference
in picture quality.
This means you can take a 1080p projector, put it in your basement, and you can actually
get sharper images than you get at the movies.
Long story short, most people would be more impressed walking into a home theater with
a huge screen in it and with a thousand dollar projector than they would with an 80" $8,000
TV.
Reason number two is that it's more immersive.
Trust me when I tell you that having a huge 1080p screen versus having a smaller 4K screen
can definitely be a much better experience.
I mean, how would you feel if you walked into a movie theater, and they had an 80" screen
on the wall instead of a 50' screen?
That's the major difference between a projector and a TV.
Now, that's not to say that you can't get a 4K projector.
I mean, if you want to spend the money, you definitely can get one, but the technology
is moving so fast that I personally don't think it's worth getting right now.
We've just gone over a bunch of pros and cons for TVs and projectors.
Now, I'm not trying to tell you that projectors are better TVs.
I'm just laying out the facts.
I actually just bought a 65" HDR TV, and I love it.
If I'm watching certain things like sports or if I wanted to just watch a quick movie
upstairs, I have no problem doing that in my living room, but if I want to really experience
a movie, I'm going to go downstairs in my basement and watch it on a 140" screen.
Now that we've talked all about video, we're definitely not going to stop there.
Another thing I want you to consider is that the visual experience is only half the battle.
The other half is going to be audio.
Once you get that projector up, the very first thing you're going to want to do is upgrade
your audio if you don't have a decent audio set up because, trust me, once you set up
that big screen, if you have small sound coming out of it, it's going to ruin your experience.
Now, I have a 9.2 channel home theater set up in my basement.
You don't necessarily have to do a 9.2 setup, but definitely try to do at least a 5.1 if
you can.
If you want to get a sound bar, that's fine.
Just make sure that you have decent audio because when you have a larger screen, if
you have smaller sound, it's going to make the screen feel smaller than it actually is.
If were interested in projectors, I'm really hoping this video helped you, but I did want
to clear up some questions and some common misconceptions about projectors and just compare
them to TVs to help you out if you're thinking about it.
All right, well, that's going to do it for this video, guys.
As always, if you like this video, mash that like button for me.
Go ahead and post your comments and your questions in the comment sections.
I'll respond to your comments, and I'll see you guys in the next video.